West: News on United Way & from homefront

The United Way program recently stepped up a notch with the appointment of Faye Northcutt-Knox to a Cannon County staff position.

Yes, it is a part-time position, but Northcutt-Knox is so energetic that much can be achieved.
Her responsibilities are expected to include a push to gain better name recognition for United Way in Cannon County. The United Way aids a number of projects here including the Senior Citizens Center, but most folks are unaware of these substantial efforts in the areas of education, income, health and rebuilding lives.

United Way programs include:
* Providing safe emergency housing.
* Offering free meals to the elderly or infirm.
* Child abuse prevention services.
* Counseling services and support for abused or neglected children and adults.
* Assisting people with health care services.

Leading the pack is the Cannon County Senior Center, a partner agency with the United Way that received $30,500 in funding during 2012.

Funds also go to the Cannon County 4-H program, the Court Advocacy and Domestic Violence Education Programs of Cannon County SAVE, the We Care Cannon program of Youth Dreams and the Food Backpack program of Woodbury United Methodist Church.

In 2012, only $3,115 was raised in Cannon County by United Way. Another $25,608 came from funds designated to Cannon County.

However, UW invested a total of $52,572 in the Woodbury area, reflecting a 183.03 percent return on the locally-raised funds. The funds don't go for administrative costs, but instead pay for actual services.

It's Faye's responsibility to help spread the news about these services the United Way helps fund. And we are sure she will do an excellent job in getting the word out.

You can reach her at her office at the Senior Citizens Center, 609 Lehman St., by calling 615-904-4117. Got a computer? You can reach her by email at faye.knox@uwrutherfordcounty.org.

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It was a big news week for the West family.

While he doesn't always own up to me, my brother Van received quite a boost this week when he was named Tennessee State Historian by Gov. Bill Haslam. He's served as director at the Center for Historic Preservation at MTSU and the Tennessee Civil War National Heritage Area.

He has taught as a professor in the MTSU history department since 1985. He currently serves as a co-chair of the Tennessee Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission and as a Tennessee representative on the National Board of Advisors of National Trust for Historic Preservation. Van also sits on the Executive Board of Lewis and Clark Trust, Inc. and on the Advisory Board of Teaching with Primary Sources, Library of Congress.

He's got some big shoes to fill. The late historian and author Walter T. Durham served 11 years in the honorary position. Durham's predecessors included noted historians Stanley Horn and Wilma Dykeman.
"Doc" West is scheduled to speak at the September meeting of the Cannon County Historical Society in September. More about that later.

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File this one under "the more things change, the more they stay the same" category…

Murfreesboro's Middle Tennessee Medical Center (MTMC) is now Saint Thomas Rutherford Hospital. Not that it really matters, but that facility was known as Rutherford Hospital for decades before it was acquired by Saint Thomas and Baptist Hospitals in Nashville.

Somehow, ol' "Rullerferd Hospital" just doesn't have the same ring as "The Medical Center."